Monday Deal Review: February 16, 2009

An interesting collection of goings-on in this week’s special President’s Day / Family Day edition of the Monday Deal Review

Follow-on tranches:

• iCo Therapeutics Inc. (TSX-V: ICO) closed the second tranche of the deal we mentioned a couple of weeks ago.  The total raised was $1,292,5oo.  iCo noted the participation of their development partner, Isis Pharmaceuticals Inc., (NASDAQ: ISIS), as a lead investor in the financing, along with insiders and existing shareholders.
• GeneNews Limited (TSX: GEN) announced the closing of the third tranche of the debenture offering we mentioned a few weeks ago in the inaugural Monday Deal Review.  The offering has raised $3,252,342 with more than one-quarter purchased by insiders.

Debenture conversion:

• PharmaGap Inc. (TSX-V: GAP) announced that SC Stormont Holdings Inc. is converting its convertible debentures, resulting in the issuance of approximately 32,130,259 common shares and 8,063,851 warrants and leaving Stormont (after exercise of all warrants) with approximately 44% of PharmaGap’s common shares.  The company also announced that its lead drug compound PhG-alpha-1 has been accepted for testing at the National Cancer Institute.

Share consolidation:

• Jovian Capital Corporation (TSX: JOV) announced on February 9th its intention to seek approval to consolidate (20:1) its common shares. Jovian currently has 167,867,555 common shares issued and outstanding.  The shares closed Friday at 0.2750.  The special meeting is March 5th.

Cost-cutting and deal solicitation:

• Haemacure Corporation (TSX: HAE), which has been seeking financing since December, announced that it has implemented cost-cutting measures in order to preserve cash, will continue to seek financing and will initiate a process intended to lead to a sale or merger.

Will RTO for cash:

• Cysplasin Biomedical Limited (OTCBB: CPBM) based in Edmonton announced (1) that it outlicensed all of its technology to Bioxen Ltd. under undisclosed terms that include an upfront payment, and (2) that it signed an LOI for a reverse takeover with Pacific Therapeutics Ltd. pursuant to which Cysplasin shareholders would end up with approximately 7.7% of the company.  Interesting side-note: apparently Bioxen was the original source of some of the Cysplasin IP in 2007.

Not really a deal, but some good news:

• Orcrist Bio announced that it had filed for a Phase I trial of its lead compound, “a patent-protected formulation of hyaluronan.”  Ocrist is privately held and based in Calgary.